Energy and fiscal policy are going to be the dominant issues in the Central and Eastern European region on Thursday.

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Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Russian President Vladimir Putin meet in Moscow to discuss Hungary’s participation in the South Stream pipeline that will transport natural gas from Russia through the Black Sea to Bulgaria and other European Union countries. South Stream is expected to go online in 2015 and eventually deliver gas to Italy, Greece, Hungary and Austria.

In Prague, executives from electricity utilities, power grid operators and other energy companies in the region will meet for a conference on power-trading issues, nuclear energy projects and the EU’s carbon emission trading scheme. The event is organized by Platts, a provider of energy commodities data and price quotes.

Slovenia’s parliament will debate the government’s fiscal-consolidation bill, centered on budget spending and welfare cuts, which is unpopular among Slovenian voters. Two large-scale protests against austerity policies are scheduled for Friday in Ljubljana, the Slovenian capital, and follow last week’s anti-government rallies and strikes among public sector employees.

Polish state-controlled oil refiner Grupa Lotos SA made 241.8 million zlotys ($78.2 million) in fourth-quarter net profit, above expectations, in part due to a stronger zloty which reduced the value of its foreign-currency debt.

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POLAND: A banking union for euro-zone members is necessary for the survival of the European Union’s single currency, Marek Belka, governor of the National Bank of Poland, said Wednesday.

But Poland, which pledged in its EU accession treaty to join the euro, may not find it in its best interest to rush to sign up for the banking union, Mr. Belka said. The most important issue for it to consider is whether the banking union’s primary purpose is to prevent euro’s crises in the future or to pay back the debts of present members, he said.

HUNGARY: The chief architect of the Hungarian government’s unorthodox economic-recovery program said Wednesday that the country’s central bank can use more creative monetary measures to boost output without endangering financial stability or igniting inflation.

For the National Bank of Hungary, “there’s room to maneuver to foster economic growth,” Economy Minister Gyorgy Matolcsy said, while emphasizing that the bank needs to “be extremely cautious” in its actions given the country’s high level of foreign-currency debt and the jittery state of the markets.

ROMANIA: Romanian government ministers and elected lawmakers should stop clouding democratic processes with judicial probes where the whiff of corruption remains, the European Commission said Wednesday.

Six years after Romania’s accession, the European Union is still struggling to see its easternmost outpost as a natural fit–with Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso repeating “serious concerns” that need addressing with elections keeping President Traian Basescu and arch-rival Prime Minister Victor Ponta locked in a simmering power struggle.

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Emerging Europe Real Time provides sharp analysis and insight into what’s making news in Central and Eastern Europe. Drawing on the expertise of our reporters in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Russia and Turkey, the site provides an inside track on economics, politics and business in this emerging part of the European continent.